Social scientists recognize a complex and iterative relationship between the built environment and social identities. Here, we explore the extent to which household and settlement remains may be used as archaeological correlates of collective identities among the Stó:lō-Coast Salish peoples of the Fraser River Valley. Using data from six recently tested archaeological sites we begin with the household and explore expressions of identity at various social-spatial scales. The sites span the period from 4200 cal B.C. to the late A.D. 1800s and include settlements with semi-subterranean houses of different forms as well as aboveground plank houses. Across this timeframe we see both change and continuity in settlement location, layout, size, and house form. Our data suggest that although group identities have changed over the millennia, selected social units have persisted through many generations and can be linked to present-day identities of the Stó:lō-Coast Salish.

This paper explores the role of public architecture in anchoring Cherokee communities to particular points within the southern Appalachian landscape in the wake of European contact in North America. Documentary evidence about Cherokee public structures known as townhouses demonstrates that they were settings for a variety of events related to public life in Cherokee towns, and that there were a variety of symbolic meanings associated with them. Archaeological evidence of Cherokee townhouses—especially the sequence of six townhouses at the Coweeta Creek site in southwestern North Carolina—demonstrates an emphasis on continuity in the placement and alignment of public architecture through time. Building and rebuilding these public structures in place, and the placement of burials within these architectural spaces, created enduring attachments between Cherokee towns and the places in which they lived, in the midst of the geopolitical instability created by European contact in eastern North America.

The elaborate symbolism painted around wall niches in Rio Grande Pueblo IV kivas ca. A.D. 1370-1600 at Pottery Mound and Kuaua describe a cosmological paradigm of layered worlds accessed by supernatural passageways. This paper examines the niche iconography at these sites and the associated metaphors represented in the surrounding murals. Equivalent to the sípàapuni and symbolic of the landscape cave, the niche as a portal to the watery and fecund underworld is often the organizing principle for west wall murals or entire kiva scenes. In addition to the prevalent stepped cloud and rainbow, these scenes frequently feature female figures and composite supernatural beings symbolic of abundance. This analysis provides insight into the focus of prehistoric kiva rituals conducted at Kuaua and Pottery Mound and the worldview with which they engaged. Finally, it is proposed that the synthesizing powers of both the simple stepped cloud and the niche itself raise these elements to the status of "nuclear ritual symbols" (Turner 1967) fundamental to Pueblo cosmology.

Qualitative models are unable to explain the known variability in the adoption and intensification of agriculture in the prehistoric North American Southwest. Adoption of a quantitative approach (specifically, a model based on marginal costs and benefits) better accounts for that variability.

Communal hunting of small game such as hares has probably occurred for 10,000 years in the Great Basin. Ethnohistoric accounts of the nineteenth century indicate that indigenous peoples communally hunted large game (e.g., pronghorn, mountain sheep, deer, bison) across much of western North America including the Plains, desert Southwest, California, and Great Basin subregions, during and immediately preceding the contact era. Research in the Plains subregion suggests that communal large game hunting occurred there prior to the adoption of the bow-and-arrow between ca. 1,500 and 2,000 years ago, and in fact may have occurred as early as 9,000 to 10,000 years ago. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century ethnohistoric accounts suggest that communal pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) hunts involving the construction of a corral with associated wings were utilized by many Great Basin peoples at the time of historic contact. This paper asks: (1) did communal pronghorn hunts occur prior to the Protohistoric Period (before ca. 600 ¹⁴C B.P.) in the north-central Great Basin? (2) if so, how ancient is this practice? and (3) did the methods or behaviors of the participants of these communal hunts vary through time? Detailed analysis of sites containing dozens, and in many cases, hundreds of projectile points that predate ca. 600 ¹⁴C B.P. found in or near existing juniper branch corrals and wings suggest that communal pronghorn hunting has occurred for at least 4,000 to 5,000 years in the north-central Great Basin. Further, behavioral variability is seen through time in the material remains of these communal hunts, with earlier (Middle Archaic) communal kills characterized by greater use of local toolstone sources, gearing-up just prior to the kill, and perhaps a greater reliance on shooting the trapped pronghorn rather than clubbing compared to Protohistoric communal kills.

The Jim Pitts site is a multicomponent Paleoindian locality in the Black Hills of South Dakota, with a rare Goshen residential occupation. All Paleoindian components were comprised in the Leonard paleosol. The deepest component at the site is a Goshen level dated to 10,185 ± 25 B.P. It correlates with a late fall-early winter camp site. Over the course of its use parts of at least five bison were procured and introduced to the site. Above this level an array of point styles, including Goshen, Folsom, Agate Basin, several Fishtail points, James Allen, Cody, and Alberta, have also been found. The following study provides a typological and technological description of the point assemblage and weighs the implications of the chrono-cultural stratigraphy for reconstructing the Paleoindian cultural landscape. It questions the validity of some types, particularly Goshen, as cultural and chronological markers. Ultimately, the evidence presented here reinforces a model in which multiple Paleoindian point types occur simultaneously on the central and northern Great Plains. This in turn challenges a unilineal view of Paleoindian culture history.

Despite increasing concern with the effects of archaeological data recovery methods on the types and quantity of objects extracted from the material record, archaeologists rarely discuss recovery biases attributable to the most basic excavation procedures. In this study I examine how several factors, including variable artifact identification skills, can affect artifact recovery rates in the field. Data from household-level investigations at the Stó:lō (Coast Salish) village of Welqámex (DiRi 15) are presented to show how interobserver variation can compromise interpretations of past behavior when opportunities for artifact recovery are limited to observations at the excavation unit and single-episode (field-only) sieving. Laboratory sorting of screen residue retained in 3.2-mm (one-eighth-inch) mesh sieves is shown to account for the recovery of as much as 87.5 percent of lithic artifacts and nearly 90 percent of archaeofaunal remains. Rates of artifact recovery in the field are highly variable among excavation crews working at Welqámex, and I argue that the application of correction factors is inappropriate unless the magnitude of recovery bias can be measured for specific excavation teams and particular depositional contexts. The results of this study further highlight the importance of documenting and mitigating the unintended effects of methodological decisions on archaeological assemblages.